Image: Willy Ronis, On the Road in Lorraine (1954)

Our weekly recap of events at DC’s newest and 3rd best dining guide.  We added places, and reviewed places and were disturbed to find that service charges are a thing.

Added to the Recommended Restaurant List:

Spoken English – Erik Bruner-Yang is serving up Japanese cuisine in a cramped space where you have to stand up while eating.  It is very good and surprisingly enjoyable!

Bantam King – The chicken-focused ramen spot behind the arena in Chinatown is doing good things.  They also make a good crispy (slightly) spicy chicken.  We think it is worth taking a walk.  It also was highlighted in Tim Carman’s inaugural dining guide.

Reviews:

Sfoglina – The Trabocchi spots in Van Ness and Downtown are doing some great things with pasta.  Worth paying for the cab/Uber to get there. Though they are both accessible by metro.

Wine:

Eric Asimov wrote a column about the future of wine writing.  His take was that the stories behind the bottle need to push aside the writing focused on bottle ratings/reviews.  We agree and think the Washington Post’s own Dave McIntyre is a good example of how to cover wine well.

Other News:

Cherry – On twitter, Tom Sietsema took a shot at the sub-par wine list at the newly-opened Cherry.  He did not call it out by name.  We did:

“The server apologized for the [wine] list before handing it over to me. Bad sign. Small list, big markups, mediocre wine. Also, replica of the Capitol Dome painting…in the lowest ceiling spot in lobby? Cooking aside, Cherry @WhotelDC has lots wrong. #ImissPinea

The new Dacha has “service charge” to hang out there on top of food or drink.  It is not in lieu of gratuity, though they claim it goes to pay for better wages.  Except there were reports that they didn’t do that.  Interestingly the service charge issue overtook the lede of the original story that the place is in financial trouble.